Rethinking affirmative action

My column for the West Bend Daily News is online.  It’s called “Rethinking affirmative action.”  Here’s a taste:

Each of Grothman’s ideas underlines the utter ridiculousness of Wisconsin’s affirmative action policies. Affirmative action was set up to make right the wrongs that our society perpetrated on various ethnic groups in the past, but we don’t even bother to target affirmative action at those who might have actually been wronged. In the end a lot of people are excluded from universities, government contracts, and a host of other things because their skin is the “wrong” color. It’s an offensive policy, but it’s also dangerous. Affirmative action policies are part of an entire culture in America that seeks to divide people by their ethnicity. They enforce the idea that if you are a member of a particular ethnic group, then you were wronged by the rest of society and deserve special treatment - even when you might have never actually been wronged. On the flip side, if you are a member of a particular ethnic group, then you have wronged other ethnic groups and deserve to be punished - even if you have never personally wronged anyone.

Such a self-identity is damaging to our society because people begin to act as a member of their designated ethnicity instead of acting like neighbors, friends, co-workers, Wisconsinites and Americans. We cannot erase our past of racial inequity by perpetuating that inequity through policies like affirmative action.

Grothman’s very mild ideas were met with righteous indignation by the Democrats and will not go anywhere in the state Senate, but he has done a great service of reminding us that racial preferences still exist in this country. In the 21st century, however, such codified prejudice is strictly the dominion of government.